Tuesday, April 24, 2012

In February I was lucky enough to go to the amazing Blissdom conference in Nashville. It was truly incredible and I really can't say enough good about it - you all should go in 2013.

But the problem is there is more than one session going on at a time and since I can't seem to be in more than one place at one time I missed MOST of the sessions.

I attended all of the photography sessions and they were AWESOME... but that meant that I missed all of the life development sessions, all of the business sessions and all of the writing sessions. And there is pretty much NOTHING good about that.

Thankfully there is Blissdom At Home!

I have been soaking up the sessions from the comfort of my own living room and it has been like opening a new gift every time I hit the play button.

Last week I listened to Christine Koh's Life Development session - "Do Less As A Life Strategy" and it hit me hard. (Many of you probably know Christine Koh as @bostonmamas)

It took me a few days to process WHY it hit me hard because it is not like Christine was telling a series of sad stories or showing pictures of starving babies or anything... and it honestly baffled me a bit.

But even the first few questions of her session hit me hard... she said:

"Raise your hand if you ever feel overwhelmed with clutter... physical or emotional... Raise your hand if you feel the only way to become/stay successful is to do more ... Raise your hand if you wish you could do less but still be creative, productive, inspired, tremendously awesome."

I was sitting in my living room, by myself raising my hand because in that moment I knew Christine was speaking directly to me... even if it was a recorded session from a few weeks ago.

As I continued to listen to Christine's talk I was more and more drawn in and I was taking notes like crazy... of course one of the best parts of listening to it from home is that I could PAUSE and REWIND when I missed something or when I just needed to hear something again. I really love that feature.

I think I listened to her say "When you do less of the unnecessary, creativity can flourish" and "when you remove clutter, paths emerge" about 5 times because I really needed those ones to sink in.

And here is why...

When you have a child with special needs (like my son with Autism) you are inundated pretty much constantly with all the things you need to be doing to help that child or to help your other children or to help your family... everything from different therapy techniques to various diets and educational methods.

It never stops.

There is always something new, something different to try, and no matter how much you do it will never ever ever be enough.

You will always be left wondering if you did enough to help your child become all they could be. There will always be someone questioning you whether you have done enough.

And added to that you have to keep track of all the appointments with doctors and specialists and counsellors- not just for your child with special needs, but also for your other children as well because siblings of children with special needs usually end up needing support of their own- and you have to keep track of all the information all of those people give you.

And then you have to work with the school and the specialists and the medical people and the therapists and everyone else under the sun to try and get everyone on the same page.

And it can be so completely overwhelming that the world around you begins to reflect the chaos of your mind... your house begins to look as chaotic as your overloaded mind and that doesn't help anyone because everyone knows a child with Autism needs a serene space to live in and chaos is never good.

But it feels like if you stop DOING all the THINGS you are SUPPOSED to be DOING everything will just fall apart and every time you turn around someone is telling you another thing you should be doing even though you can barely keep up as it is!

Then you sit down to listen to a message called "Do LESS As A Life Strategy" and suddenly you are crying even though it isn't a sad talk at all - because simplicity is SO WHAT WE NEED!

And so I listened to Christine talk and I cried and I loved it. And I am going to listen to her talk again. Probably a few more time actually until it really sinks in through the chaos that has built up in my mind and until I can come up with a plan to move from the clutter that is our lives right now to the simplicity that I KNOW we need.

I have deep gratitude to Christine and I don't even know her. I didn't get the chance to meet her at Blissdom. I wish I had because she is one very wise woman.

And to think- that was only ONE of the sessions available!

If you haven't already checked out Blissdom At Home you really should- clearly I am a big fan! :)